Synchronicity

I'd just started reading this book when the publicity about Queen Elizabeth as a child giving the Nazi salute to her father came out. I don't want to comment on how true or not this was, but this fascinating book by Deborah Cadbury gives an insight into the activities of the Duke of Windsor (him what abdicated) and his brothers during the Second World War. My mother, an Englishwoman who lived through these events, always held that it was a lucky thing for Britain when the King abdicated, as he was rabidly pro-Nazi and would have handed the whole country over to Hitler, as long as Hitler promised to make Wallis Simpson queen. This book does agree with that. The Duke was a playboy whose only thought was for himself and his wife. While Europe went through the agonies of war, the Duke and Duchess were swanning around the Caribbean on a friend's yacht, spending up big at the Waldorf-Astoria, and adding to Wallis' collection of jewellery. It's no wonder that the Duke and Duchess were roundly hated by ordinary people in England. Before the writer can be accused of bias, and me of bias in reporting same, these things are a matter of historical record. The Duke and Duchess were kept under surveillance by MI5, MI6 and the FBI, and the Nazis, who hoped that the Duke and Duchess might be used as a lever to victory over England. 

I have read another of Deborah Cadbury's books "The lost king of France" about the sad history of the little boy who was the son of Marie Antoinette, and next in line to the throne after his father's execution. She is a very good writer, who walks the narrow line between factual history and popular history. You feel as if you are reading a thriller, but an educated and well-considered one.